For a week now, Bella has been acting really crazily in her crate when the door is OPEN. She can come and go as she pleases, and she goes in there and starts barking and howling, sometimes staring at the back of the crate, sometimes laying with her legs in the air, rolling around, pushing the crate pillow all around, digging in the pillow, going out and trying to pull the pillow out...if I take the pillow out she immediately tries to drag it all around the floor or back into the crate. This is the only time she howls, and the only time she barks extensively, and it's making me nuts. I have inspected her crate inside and out to see if there's anything in there bothering her, but nothing. Twice there was a toy stuck under the pillow, so maybe she was trying to get that, but the other times? Anyone else's beagle doing this?

Have you tried closing the door to see if she freaks out trying to get in? She could just be having a good time beagle style. Molly gets all weird sometimes sniffing at her bed, flipping the pillow up etc.

Cassie will go in her crate and pull out the towels, start chewing or ripping them-when she does it it sure looks like a tantrum to me. I then close her crate so she can't do it and tell her "NO!" she will bang her paw on the door which makes a lot of noise since she's trying to open it...
Maybe re-locate the crate temporarily, cover it. I also give a little treat when I put her in it so she thinks its a good place to be.

1beaglehouse,
Many of my beagles have done or currently do something like what you wrote about. Pixie gets her dinner in a toy(Bob olot) and she will roll,kick,flail and carry on and sure enough a piece of kibble is hidden somewhere. Izzy was a chain dog(before me) and I have a goofy looking indoor doghouse she sleeps in. She will kick,flail and moan to rearrange to the point she has moved the entire thing several feet (it's made of cloth). Her bed is in a corner and I've gotten up in the morning to see her and her house in the middle of the room. I've never been owned by a beagle that didn't like to rearrange things.

__________________
Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity.
Peanuts
Snoopy

Thanks! I feel better knowing Bella is not the only Beagle with this craziness. She loves her crate and goes in an out all day, naps there often altho' she has a really nice pad (which she also likes) just the other side of the room, and willingly gets shut into it at night and during the day if we need to leave her a few hours. I have not tried closing the crate so she can't get in, but will next time she behaves like that. Today we had to relocate her crate permanently just a few feet from where it was before, and she did that same behavior in the crate in the new spot. And she does "rearrange" -- she drags her whole crate (which is much bigger than she is, and heavy) as far as she can before we stop her, and also noses her plastic toy box to new locations. The more inconvenient for us, the better, apparently. Maybe it's like the "speedies" she does, dashing madly from room to room, just a normal Beagle exhibition.

hahah..when cassie pulls out the towels the crate sometimes goes too across the room and it is a very large one-previously used by a 65lb coonhound. She does this stuff when I'm ignoring her or she wants my attention...just like kids, eh?

__________________
Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I've just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don't bite a cat before sundown, I'll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That's what is known as real maturity.
Peanuts
Snoopy